Modality, such as an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, an X-ray CT system, MRI equipment, and the like, is used to diagnose a test subject, and provides images thereof during the diagnosis.
For example, the ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus has widely spread through medical institutions since the apparatus gives noninvasive inspection in real time. The ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus includes an electro-acoustic transducer for irradiating ultrasonic pulses to the inside of the subject and an image processing apparatus. The ultrasonic pulses irradiated in the living body reflect in accordance with a difference in the specific acoustic impedance of the biological tissues. For example, a stronger ultrasonic echo can be obtained at a boundary surface where the impedance difference is large, and contrarily, a weaker ultrasonic echo can be obtained at a boundary surface where the impedance difference is small. The ultrasonic echo is converted to an electrical signal by the electro-acoustic transducer. The electrical signal is amplified, reconstructed into an ultrasonic b-mode image, or the like, and displayed on a display. When the image is displayed on the display, brightness modulation according to the signal amplitude is performed in such a manner that a larger ultrasonic echo would show up brighter and a smaller echo would show up darker on the display.
The image processing apparatus includes an adjustment part for amplifying the electrical signal. The adjustment part is provided with an operation part. Upon reception of an instruction by the operation part, the adjustment part amplifies (performs gain adjustment) the electrical signals to adjust the image brightness.
The details from the structures of low-frequency components, such as soft tissues, muscles, and the like, to the structures of high-frequency components, such as bones, and the like, are sometimes drawn on the image. Frequency processing for emphasizing dotted or liner shadows is performed for such the image.
Further, there is Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2012-105973, as a prior art document.
When the gain adjustment is set darker to a certain degree, it could lead to loss of necessary information for the image. On the other hand, there has been a request for adjusting the image brightness in real time. There also has been a request for easily adjusting the image brightness in accordance with a user and the test subject. Further, there has been another request for adjusting the image brightness of only the low-frequency components in the frequency processing.
However, when the gain adjustment is performed in two dimensions in space, it requires much time for the grain adjustment due to an enormous calculation quantity, and therefore it becomes difficult to adjust the image brightness in real time. It is also difficult to adjust the image brightness of only the low-frequency components in the frequency processing.
The present embodiments are intended to solve the above problems, and provide an image processing apparatus and an ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus, capable of adjusting image brightness in real time.